Eating in China

I spent three weeks in China and there is no way that I can begin to talk about each individual place and also do justice to all the food I ate. Most of the food was fantastic, and a few things were a little more challening (donkey, tripe, chicken feet, etc.). When I was in Beijing I saw the Chow Yun Fat movie The Corruptor - and in the movie his character says, "When you're Chinese you have to each some nasty shit.". I repeated that line at dinner one night and my Chinese friend (and donkey wine brother) Yanfeng just laughed and said, "That is so true.". The Chinese love meat on the bone and believe that the meat that "works" - that is, is located around a joint - is the best. This is why they like chicken feet, which I tried to eat, although I never quite figured out how to do it. I just popped it in my mouth, hoping that the "meat" would just dissolve in my mouth - and eventually I just discreetly took it out of my mouth and hid it behind my plate. For meals I spent everywhere between $70 (first night in Beijing - my friend Craig picked the restaurant - a posh hot pot restaurant - and I paid, and we swapped the next night, when I picked a great working class restaurant, for which it cost around $12 and he paid - this is what happens when you go out to eat with graduates from Duke) and 6¥ (less than a dollar - for a big order of pork noodles and a plate full of dumplings - at a little hole in the wall in Xi'an - it was about the dodgiest looking place I ever tried, but it was great). I think the best meal I had was a little place outside the Lama Temple in Beijing - I think it was called the Terra Cotta Warrior Restaurant - and I had a big plate of pork noodles and essentially a pulled pork sandwich (it looked like a pork egg mcmuffin) and a coke for around $3. It was fantastic and the owner of the redtaurant turned down a tip.